LncRNA-MIAT-Mediated miR-214-3p Silencing Is Responsible for IL-17 Production and Cardiac Fibrosis in Diabetic Cardiomyopathy
Yanqing Qi, Hongyu Wu, Changjiang Mai, Hanqun Lin, Jia Shen, Xiaoyun Zhang, Yakun Gao, Yong Mao, Xupin Xie
Abstract
As an important complication of diabetes mellitus, diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) is characterized by a silent development in its earlier stage and a deficient cardiomyocyte contractility in its late stage. So far, little advance has been achieved to reverse this pathological change. LncRNAs are defined as a large cluster of RNAs without the function of encoding proteins, but have the capacity in controlling gene expression. Interleukin-17 (IL-17), a proinflammatory cytokine, is a key regulator of host inflammation. Clinically, it plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of cardiac interstitial fibrosis. In this study, we reported that high glucose-induced lncRNA-MIAT upregulation is responsible for proinflammatory IL-17 production in cardiomyocytes. The underlying mechanism is likely due to that lncRNA-MIAT specific attenuates miR-214-3p-mediated inhibitory effect on IL-17 expression. As a result, attenuated IL-17 expression significantly ameliorate cardiac fibrosis, followed by improvement of cardiac contractility. Taken together, our study first suggests that lncRNA-MIAT plays a key role in DCM and targeting lncRNA-MIAT may become a potential strategy to treat DCM.